I Speak of Julius
by Servant of Fire
Summary: AU Set after Hounds. Mycroft is living at the mental institution John works at , and has been for almost a year. When John discovers that the picture of his dead little brother "Bill Watson" is the same exact picture as Mycroft's assumed dead brother ,Sherlock, he goes on a hunt for answers. Sherlock meanwhile tries to solve the location of the cartel he is hostage in.
1. I

**I Speak Of Julius~**

**For my Friend, Who gives my mind some peace~**

**I ~**

* * *

The room is dark and melancholy, despite the multicolored striped drapes, and the multicolored bedding, and the bright oarnge chairs.

The sun bleeds through in tiny streams, and there is a feel of nursery about it, despite its dismal lack of lighting, and the fact that it is prepared for a 37 year old man.

John pushes the door open, and smiles at the prominent figure stooped in the velor oarnge rocking chair close by the window, rocking back and forth.

"Good morning, Mycroft!"he calls, setting his lunch tray down on the little sliding writing desk that sits in front of his chair.

The man twirls a long dark umbrellla in his pale, shaking hands. Always shaking. Always staring at the floor. Paralysed with grief, why his caretakers aren't sure.

He was found wandering the streets of Brixton very late one night last autumn.

He was whispering a name over and over again. A name no one knows, a person he never stops asking about.

"Brought you something to eat. You've got to be hungry by now; didn't touch your breakfast!"

John smiles, as brightly as he can, trying to attract the attention of the very broken ,mysterious man.

Mycroft looks up, and licks his lips.

"Doctor Watson, the sun is shining ,isn't it?"

"Yes, it is, would you like me to open the window for you?"

"Yes..."

John pulls back the drapes, and looks out on the garden of Evangeline's Sanctuary: Hospice For the Traumatized and Mentally Unwell.

He's been working here ever since he woke up from a coma ,and didn't remember the night his brother ,Billy Watson, was murdered.

He actually doesn't even remember his brother is the problem. Harry described him. Said he was adopted. Had curly black hair, was younger than them both , and practically towered over John. Was extremely brilliant...

John smiled sadly, as he saw Mrs. Hudson, his previous landlady, who was now the garderner here at Evangeline's . He'd felt bad when he'd moved, but he really couldn't stay in the same flat he'd lived in with Bill; it was as foreign as the concept of having a dead little brother that he couldn't even dredge up an image of from his memory.

Harry told him that his favorite wispy blue scarf ,that permanently smelled like some ridicuolously expensive aftershave, had originally belonged to Bill. John had one photograph of him. One that featured him wearing the scarf, along with a draping-long black coat, hands thrust down in the pockets, head tilted to the side as if contemplating the Cosmos when the picture was snapped.

John stared at that picture all the time. Traced his finger over the face, trying to place it. Wore the scarf close, drew in its scent, tried to recall the man who had worn it.

Nothing.

It was almost like losing a loved one. Almost.

It hurt just as much, but in a different way.

He felt he had lost something seriously valuable.

He just couldn't remember what.

"Sherlock." Mycroft muttered.

"Mm? Oh, sorry, what did you say, Mycroft? I was looking out the window here, and I didn't hear you..."

"Sherlock...I want to go and look for him. The sun is shining..."

John swallowed. This was not the first time Mycroft had asked to go look for "Sherlock".

John wondered with great dread who on earth this "Sherlock" was? Something VERY bad must have happened to him, if a man with as high an IQ as Mycroft Holmes was rendered this childlike dependant from the memoy of his fate.

"Maybe uhm...we could call ...Sherlock? Do you have his contact number?"

Mycroft shook his head, and bit his fingernails.

"Saved my life...My little brother...Sherlock."

John felt like he'd been hit in the chest with a canon.

Mycroft had lived here for almost a year now, and this was the very first time he had made it clear who "Sherlock" had been.

John smiled. Now it would be easy. Mycroft's last name was "Holmes". If the brothers shared the same last name, then that would make the little brother "Sherlock Holmes".

How many blokes named "Sherlock Holmes" could their possibly be in the phone book? A weird name such as that, it would be a very short process of elimination. He'd call him, tell him they'd found his brother, ask him to make an appearance to ease the poor man's troubled mind...

Only it wasn't as easy as all that.

Because the poor fool was probably dead...

John felt like he could cry now. Felt like he should know how this felt. His little brother had been murdered too, after all. Just last fall, same time Mycroft came to live here.

" You know, I had a little brother once too." John said, trying to keep his voice sounding cheerful, to distract Mycroft from whatever dark roads of thought he was wandering down.

Mycroft looked up at John, brows arching, a dignified expression for someone so out of their head.

"Oh, did you?"

"Yes...He...uhmm...he's gone. I keep his picture in my wallet. Would you like to see it?" John ventured, hoping maybe the image of the young man that so haunted him, would somehow strangely cheer up the man whose world was completely decimated with the loss of his own brother.

Mycroft peered curiously, as John reached in his pocket and dug out his wallet, flipping it open to the fold in it where most people keep their driver's liscence, (but living nowhere but London since he'd come back from Afghanistan, John didn't have one). There tucked safely under plastic, was the image of Bill Watson, a fading sepia photo, this being the only figment that remained of him.

Mycroft's eyes grew as wide as a Chinese goldfish, and he leaned forward, jaw dropping open.

John chuckled, mistaking it for delight, when Mycroft gave a soft ,sniffing laugh of elated joy.

"You have his picture!"

John's blood went cold.

Mycroft was mentally disoriented. Showing him the picture made him think it actually WAS his little brother. John could KICK himself!

"Oh, this is brilliant, Doctor Watson! You have his picture! Now we can properly file a missing persons report for him! He's clever enough; he's still alive, he's still waiting for me to get him out..."

"Out?...out of where? Mycroft, this...*ehem* this is a picture of my little brother Bill."

"Rubbish! THAT is a picture of _my _ little brother, William Sherlock Scott Holmes!" Mycroft hissed, and reached in _his _wallet (John didn't even know that the nurses had let him keep it) and pulled out the exact same picture.

John took a step back, feeling like he'd been stung by a viper.

Mycroft smiled.

" Perhaps we should use the colored one for a missing persons flyer. Sherlock doesn't like having his picture made; I only have two photographs of him to my name. This one will work better for a flyer." he said, pulling another picture out of the change pocket of his wallet.

It was a picture of Sherlock, or Bill, or whoever the poor soul was, taken probably about 5 years ago. A man about 25 years old, with dark curly hair and the most startling silver-green eyes that John had ever seen, wearing the same long dark coat, and same wispy blue scarf, arms folded over his chest, leaning with one foot pressed against the wall of St. Bart's Research Hospital.

John swallowed the growing horror in his stomach.

" He saved me...Now I can save him, Doctor. The picture ,take it, to the police station. There's no time to waste! He was in quite a bit of trouble the last time I saw him...silly child."

"When did you last...see him?"

"The night of Octorber 24th, 2013."

Dear,God.

That was the night everyone told John his accident had been.

The night that "Bill" had died.

But this Sherlock...Mycroft had said that one of his given names was "William."

William...Billy.

It was unmistakeable. "Sherlock Holmes" and "William Watson" were the same person!

"Mycroft...I'm going to do just that. You...sit here and eat, ok?"

Mycroft smiled,

"Would be my pleasure ,Doctor, now that I know we are underway to finding him! Finally!"

John went to the doorway, feeling fate, turned around.

"Do...do you remember _where _it was that you last saw your little brother?"

Mycroft's face went blank, and he dropped his sandwich back on the plate.

"The House...The House With the Blood-Red Fences..."

John nodded, head spinning.

"Ok. That should help! No worries, we'll find him very soon!"

"I have the uttmost faith in you, Doctor!" Mycroft smiled jovially, and nodded, taking a big bite of his sandwich.

John closed the door, and leaned against it, feeling like his throat was a vaccuum hose, sucking in but drawing no air, only particles of information to choke on.

There was only one man he could talk to about this. One that he had been avoiding ever since the day he woke up in a hospital with no memory of the last 5 years.

Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade...


	2. II

**II~**

* * *

"Don't you love the Games we play, Sherlock?" _his _voice whispers through the door slit.

It's like a disease ,isn't it? Quarantined off in there, all alone. Without light. Without warmth. Half the time without food and water, unless I'm feeling generous...like today, teehee...

You know the worst part is that you're without your adorable little John. Last I heard he doesn't even remember you...How sad...

Meanwhile, you're cooped up in there...Trapped in your own head. So wrapped up in puzzles, that you can't meddle in my business. So we still have fun, but daddy does his job too; it's our bread and butter, my pet! It puts food on the table, love!..."

Sherlock feels it again. The cold. It's incessant, the sensation of being cold. But _The _cold is different. It's that shaky, out-of-control feeling he gets right when the poison from the House With The Blood-Red Fences leaks it's aerosol dispensation from somewhere unseen. The House's belly turns and twists in on itself like a viper, and this cold feeling is the fangs sinking in ,slow and surely...

The cold always gives place to that other feeling. That inexplicable need to run, to listen , to look, to solve it.

What is _it?_

" You do remember why you're in there, don't you? Once again, it always goes back to your adorable little John. And Mycroft too...oh dear Sherlock, you really are generous when it comes to making bargains! But...I never could pass up an opportunity to play with you..."

Sherlock hisses, as the cold turns to perspiration, clothing him in a bitter second skin.

"Julius!" he hisses.

Silence. Horrified silence.

"What did you say?"

"You heard me. I've solved the Final Problem...I know what you're about..."

"Which...is why...you're never going to get out of there...Because if you do...I burn your heart, remember?"

"Oh, I know..." Sherlock nods, and sweat creeps down his face, his neck, slithering like tiny serpents down his chest. He holds his breath, willing it away. It's chemical,one can taste the chemicals. Over exposure..., yet somehow he hangs on to his mind for dear life and with both hands, because he needs it.

His will is stronger than James Moriarty ever calculated.

"But...it was never about me "getting out" , or "getting even", was it? It was never about me solving your puzzles, and then seeing as I'd beaten you, me getting killed-pssh, don't be so dull, Jim! I know the real you!...

See it could never be so easy as all that, could it? It could never be just Games with you, could it?

We have to destroy each other. We have to shake hands in Hell, don't we?

Which is why one day I will best the Devil. Which is why somehow I _will _get out of here, before you have a chance to harm the people I care about. Which is why someday I will have to pose a very hard bargain to you...and you will be tempted to take it."

"And why's that? I'm not an angel like you, Sherlock...I don't love anyone..."

"That's not entirely true ,though, is it? You do love someone very much..."

"Don't flatter yourself, dear."

" But it's not me! You love yourself , Jim! You worship this, you are addicted to this desperate match of unknown destiny.

And one day, I will use your own reflection to trick you, Narcissus. And it will be so beautiful, you will bless my name for it."

Jim laughed, and daubed a hanky over his eyes.

"Oh, well...I'm flattered. Really I am, Sherlock.

But it looks like that day hasn't come yet. And so...while we wait, I shall have to bend the rules of our Games a little, to give you some extra practice. You'll need to be really good, you know, if you're ever gonna beat me."

"Which I will..."

"No you won't!" Jim cackled in a sing- song voice.

"Mmmm, well it's been a lovely chat, but I've got a world to burn, Sherlock. Enjoy the most recent serum the boys mixed up for you. This one's on me... Ciao."

Sherlock groaned, and his throat began to close, as thick clouds of billowing vapors rolled up from under the wrought iron dyed indelible blood-red bars of his somewhere's basement prison.

He could hear the Hounds of Hell around him, ready for the hunt again.

And for the upteenth time since he'd entered this illusion, he envisioned himself at the mercy of Moriarty's imagination.


	3. III

**III~**

* * *

John sat in one of the stiff backed metal chairs, in the coffee lounge , waiting for an eternity.

Stared at the picture of "Bill" for a long dizzying moment, now unable to think of the face as being "Bill".

Now the faded ,mysterious photo was "Sherlock".

And now that it was...something felt very seriously wrong.

It was almost like John _did _remember that name, but the memories were from another life, and when he woke up in this one, they were all just clear shapes in his mind, as thin and see through as bubbles, and anytime he tried to stir them to color, they burst and vanished, and it was as futile as trying to milk a cow for loose change.

"Why?" he whispered, looking at the cieling.

Why if the man in the picture was actually the mysteriously assumed murdered Sherlock Holmes, why was it that everyone he knew sympathised and offered their condolences for the death of Billy?

How many cards had he gotten, flowers even, well wishes, visits? People he barely knew were knocking on his door, offering their respects.

John thought it would all become suddenly clear when Greg Lestrade stepped into the room.

He hadn't seen him since the day he woke up.

He barely remembered that day. Remembered being told by a doctor at St. James that he had been rendered comatose by some unknown toxin that had also blocked the stimuli in his brain needed for memory. So it was very unlikely that he would remember the night that he was captured, or anything about the events leading up to his brother's death.

He had expected at least to be able to remember the little brother everybody said he was absolutely stupid over. People he barely knew were brought to tears by the thought of John losing someone he had been THAT close to. It was a little unsettling their reaction.

And then it hit John.

Maybe their reaction was fake.

Maybe they were all solicited to act that way, to keep him from remembering something that could put other people in danger.

Funny, it was almost like someone else, someone with a much more brilliant mind than his ,had trained him to think like a conspiracy theorist.

He looked up at the Inspector, expecting the same blank expression as was on his face the day he woke up, the day he asked him a few questions about what all he could remember, if there was anything at all.

But today he was sheet white.

"So...it looks like you've started to remember..." he said, coming into the room, leaning over the table at which John sat.

John stood up, never liking to be stood over.

"No...No, really I don't. I've been back in therapy, and everything... I don't remember, but my patient at the mental trauma facility on the other side of the City...He had this exact same photograph as I do of Billy, and this one too.

John held up the picture of Sherlock leaning against the wall of St. Bart's.

"My patient is the man that you found wandering around incoherent in Brixton last autumn. The one that was babbling about some poor sod named "Sherlock", and you never could figure it out, or come up with any evidence to the supposedly missing person, so you institutionalized him. Well, I am his caregiver at this institution, and today while I'm checking in on him, he up and tells me that "Sherlock" is or was his little brother. The man's name is "Mycroft Holmes" and so that would make the little brother "Sherlock Holmes".

I thought that showing him my picture of Bill might lift his spirits about his little brother, since that's obviously the reason behind his trauma. When he saw it, he swore that it was most definitely his brother "William Sherlock Scott Holmes" and he produces a copy of my wallet picture, and this one, saying we should make posters, saying that "Sherlock" saved his life, that he was in a lot of trouble, and we couldn't waste any time finding him. He said that he last saw Sherlock on October 13th, 2013. The same night as my accident/ abduction or whatever in blazes actually put me in a bloody coma!

So I've come to you wanting to know how the missing person that rendered somebody that passed an IQ quiz and leveled with Albert Einstein completely incompetent, and my dead brother could be the same person. And if they are the same person, then why did everyone I know go along with the whole "Dead Brother" act, and send me flowers and stuff to that end? Am I being duped? What's really going on? And is there anything we can do to find out what happened to that kid? "

Greg froze, shaking his head, jaw slackened.

"We could...search the name "Sherlock Holmes" on database, see what comes up?"

"I know that he actually did exist, Inspector. I apparently used to flat share with him."

"We should probably call your landlord in for questioning ,then."

"Landlady ,actually. She's the gardener at Evangeline's...where I work, where Mycroft lives."

Greg nodded,

"It might be a stab in the dark, but we may try and question Mycroft too, see what we can piece together from the shrapnel of his mind..."

John followed Greg then down several diffrent hallways and into a computer room.

He held his breath wondering why something felt so wrong.

Wondering why it felt like he shouldn't be the one doing this, wondering how he knew how to do this investigation thing so instinctively, almost like he'd been trained by the best?

And the most disturbing thought that came to him...

How many vitally important things had been lost to his memory while he was sleeping?


	4. IV

**IV**

* * *

She's crying when they bring her in.

John stands up, feeling the top of his head prickling like it's got explosives in it.

He and Greg have just pulled the name "Sherlock Holmes" up on database.

And found out that Sherlock Holmes was a bordering- on- famous ,first and only consulting detective that had aided in several of Greg's puzzling cases, and that John had written a lengthy blog describing, the last of these entries being the harrowing case of "The Hound of Baskerville"an amazing feat of deduction that both John and Greg had first- hand witnessed.

Now that they had read it in black and white, they both _remembered_ Sherlock.

Remembered working with him, and living with him, remembered his eccentric nature, the way he talked, the way he dressed... Remembered his brother , Mycroft, back when Mycroft held a "minor position" in the British government.

What they did not remember was how they went from being the trio at the peak of criminal justice, and inseparable friends, to having an unidentified stack of fading photographs, and a distraught brother landed in a mental institution?

Make that a distraught brother, plus one distraught landlady attesting her innocence between sobs.

"He made me promise; he made me promise! They were going to kill you boys, if I didn't keep it hush hush, they were going to kill me too! Had guns;it was all scary business!"

John shook his head, having a very hard time processing his situation.

" Mrs. Hudson." he addresses his former landlady, and takes her by her shoulders.

"I need you to calm down, and have a seat."

He guides her very carefully to one of those same stiff-backed metal chairs he was sitting in only a little while ago, and makes her sit. She blows into her hanky, and squeaks a horrified sob.

"Now...it's very important that you explain to us rather carefully exactly what it is Sherlock made you promise..." said John.

As the memory returns, so does the feeling. John feels sick to the very core of himself, to think that he could have a) forgotten his best friend and b) forgotten what had BECOME of said best friend.

The distress it had caused Mycroft, (to the point of mental disorientation, __him?)_ and the obvious distress it was causing Mrs. Hudson...

John felt like he had been living in a haze, missing what was most important in life, overlooking the people he cared about, when they needed him the most. He hadn't done it on purpose. The people he cared about were the reason for his life, and he would do anything to help them. Anything, even if it killed him.

So why did he end up comatose when Sherlock had needed him?

And where in hell was Sherlock now? Only God knew...

"It was Moriarty..." Mrs. Hudson squeaked.

There was a sudden sick jolt in the room, and everyone's souls rolled inside them like thunder ,at the mention of that name. Mrs. Hudson swallowed, shaking her head violently.

"I'm sorry...I can't remember everything. He used a drug...on all of us...Don't know how they made it...or why...All I know is that...oh please don't be angry with me, John!, or with Sherlock. He was trying to save you! Both of you! Mycroft too, Mycroft was actually there, witnessed...whatever happened,...the day he disappeared!"

"It's ok...Mrs. Hudson?! Shh!, It's ok...Tell me what you promised Sherlock before he went missing." John commanded, voice low.

"We invented the story about your having a little brother that was murdered, John. We didn't mean anything by it, honestly, Inspector, we did it because Moriarty said Sherlock either played his Game, or he killed you and John, and me, and the boys and girls from Sherlock's charity, oh what did he call it? -Homeless Network... We made it all up, something to throw off the police. We pretended that the famous detective that had been helping the police was all just a spoof that John's brother put on, because he was a film major. We had innocent intentions though, Inspector, honest we did! Sherlock agreed to all of that, that awful night. We were all sworn to secrecy ,given these little flyers to read when we woke up, with the instrucitions for what we were supposed to tell people if they asked what happened to him. Moriarty took Sherlock away, and it wasn't against his will...Mycroft followed them I think. Molly Hooper -from hospital- she's the only one who knows the truth. Oh, but she can't talk, and I mean literally- whatever happened to Sherlock was so awful that Molly's been mute ever since! She won't even write out what she wants to say to us,and we couldn't get her to make signs either! She's living at Evangeline's too now, just like Mycroft, and since they are there, and John works there, and I promised poor Sherlock I'd watch out for them..."

Mrs. Hudson started crying now and talking unintelligbly about how she had "put in to be the gardener", and "stopped renting the flat" hoping "maybe the boys would come home one day". It was hard to make sense of it now, and John laid a gentle hand atop her head.

"Shh...ok...It' s ok...you've told us all you could..."

"Oh, am I in trouble? I really haven't meant any harm...I was just trying to help him- he was going to die, and I didn't want him to die- but atleast I could try and help him, Molly and I could!"

"No...you're not in trouble." Greg said sadly, cupping his chin in his palm.

"If Sherlock has somehow survived whatever the blazes that psychopath has done to him, then he's the only one that really _is_ in trouble...Which is why it's double time now, everybody, we are going to have to solve for Sherlock this time, and figure out what has happened to him..."

By now there was a whole flock of eavesdropping agents hanging about in the corners, that came to the light.

"We should probably start at figuring out why exactly we don't remember what happened." John put in, feeling like his blood was frozen.


	5. V

**V~**

* * *

"You're only as old as the hour in which you live..."

"You're not real! You're not here! My eyes, my ears, my senses! THE FACTS! The EVIDENCE is what I trust, not words! Words are cheap, and often full of errors! You should see the example of grammar in the police reports!"

" Oh Sherlock..."

The patronzing voice is now echoing off of the Room Full of Mirrors.

"Oh Sherlock, clever and so utterly simple all at once. It's too easy, it's too easy! Love, how can you trust the evidence, when the EVIDENCE itself betrays you?!"

There was a rush , a breeze from somewhere, and it rustled the many hanging mirrors like feathers, and there was a creak in the pulley chains above.

"I can trust...myself..."

"Or can you? I am your own mind...don't you remember? Idiot! I'm your thoughts, riddled with poison, giving you someone to talk to. Of course I'm not real you idiot! I'm your IMAGINATION! Your precious mind, your magnificent brain, is your own Judas!

If I give you enough rope, then you'll hang yourself, amongst the many mirrors...Now won't that be a sight, like a French chandalier...Luminosity ,Sherlock. Clarity...truth...How we all seek it...How few of us find it..."

Sherlock kneels on the floor, blood dripping from his forehead.

Dizzy now.

Having tried to climb out again.

Having fallen again.

Always falling...

"I found it once."

"John Watson?! HA! Your loyalty is so impossibly wretched. I pity you!"

"My loyalty is the only reason I have survived...He may not have been the most luminous of persons in his own mind's stagnation, but...he was the catalyst of the combustion for my mental capacity.

John Watson was my friend...Never mind whether he would be still if I came back to him...

John Watson was my friend, and it was his friendship that calmed the maelstrom in my mind.

It was the calm, the peace he gave, that empowered me to see the evidence for what it was...and what it was not..."

Sherlock smiled, suddenly raptured.

"OH! Brilliant, that's it!"

" BRILLIANT! I can save John, by allowing John to save me!"

He leaped to his feet, and that foul smelling breeze blew on him again from Somewhere's Vent, on the First Floor.

The mirrors shuttered like palm fronds above him, their chains tangling like a spider's web...

"You're as good as dead..." whispered the patronizing voice again.

" I was dead the moment I came here. But now...There's no where to go but up!" Sherlock laughed, and tried to climb out again.


	6. VI

**VI~**

* * *

Mycroft sits upright, and folds his hands, as if in an interview, with a delighted, absolutely calm smile on his face, the moment he hears footsteps in the hallway.

"You've brought the Detective Inspector, have you, Doctor Watson?" Mycroft calls ,as John opens the door.

John smiles at the man, feeling infinitely more sad for his condition ,now that he remembered him.

"Yes. Yes I did. He's come to ask you some questions, if that's alright?"

"Oh ,yes of course! I've only been waiting for you for a year, Inspector Lestrade."

Lestrade drew near, and swallowed. He hadn't had much to do with Sherlock's brother in the past. He'd always been a little intimidating when he was "altogether there" but now that he was a little out of his head...It was most unnerving.

Maybe for the sole reason that no one could remember why Mycroft was so broken, or why Molly Hooper was mute.

"Yes, I've just come to ask you for some basic facts...You know... like the last day you saw Sherlock...Where you last saw him?"

"I told John already...it was Octorber 24th, 2014...and it was ..."

Mycroft's eyes looked away, and he tried to compose himself.

"You said, you said the 13th , John?"

"Oh sorry, I got the dates wrong, didn't I?"

"No, you said the 13th because that was the night you were put in a coma..." Mycroft whispered, staring absently at the floor.

"Shame, ...really was...Broke Sherlock's heart...But it was only temporary...and it was for your own good..."

He looked up, and there were faint tears in his eyes...

"Where did you ...last see your brother, Mycroft?" asked Greg, swallowing.

John felt like he'd inhaled sand.

Had Sherlock been the one to put him in some sort of medically induced coma?

And if so, then...why?

Mycroft was shaking again, heavily...

"The House...The House With the Blood Red Fences."

Greg's face went white.

"What?Do you know...what that means?" John asked, voice hoarse.

"There's been rumors of a cartel...a massive operation that we can never find convincing evidence, or actually any one to arrest, to start an investigation of... It's somewhere just outside the city limits..." Greg said, voice trailing off.

John nodded.

"So, we've got a lead?"

"Yeah, I think we've got a lead. Not to worry, Mycroft! We'll be bringing Sherlock home before you know it!"

"Wonderful!" Mycroft laughed, with a nod, and turned back to his newspaper.

The headlines were in bold print.

**FURTHER SUSPICIONS SURROUNDING HOUSE WITH RED FENCING...**


	7. VII

**VII~**

* * *

No sooner had they drawn near the place, than did something feel very wrong about it.

There were no cars, or passerby within 2 miles. In fact, one might think this was in the English countryside ,in the merry summertime, and not right outside the City of London,for all the greenery.

But still the very air was sick, as if it was suffering from bloodloss, as if all the pressure of the veins of the Universe were drawn to those garish iron wrought fences, standing as tall as a horse, and painted scarlet, as if dyed thus with blood.

For indeed they had been.

Moriarty had been keeping Sherlock prisoner here for a solid year. In a solid year strange things had happened in this place, horrific things, things of great pain.

Things that other people would mistake for imaginary because Moriarty tortured Sherlock, and yet he never entered the building. But when the deeds were done he would gather the bowls of blood left behind, and Sherlock would curse him everytime, and solve yet another one of his puzzles.

And on had gone the Game that Sherlock hadn't wanted to play, but had agreed to for their safety's sake.

And so John and Greg slowly approached the Bright Red Door, hoping to know the truth at last.

Before they even could form thoughts, to form a plan, they knew.

There was a stirring in the house, deep within, that sounded like the creaking of bones in the grave. It rolled like thunder, and there was a low ,ominous growling that grew louder and louder and louder.

And then they saw through the windows. Through the cracks in the fences, through the walls.

They pounced against the Door, and there was a crackling sound as boards blistered under their tramping feet.

Greg took a great leap back and gasped loudly ,pulling his gun, and shooting haphazardly.

John was panting , blue around the lips, because he had seen something else.

A motion in the window, a blurry white cloud that once was a human being.

Greg whirled in a circle, and made a tiny sob- like sound, as the growling faded to a low throaty hiss, and they were gone.

"Oh my God!" Greg gasped, shaking, stumbling over to John.

"But...how?!"

"Greg!" John whispered.

"Wha?_!"

Greg had seen it too. The white blurr, the momentary glimpse of someone who used to be human, no matter how it seemed. Someone who used to be the most _human_ human...

Slowly, against their will, and yet driven by a curiosity stronger than their very being, they drew closer.

John leaned against the cold window pane, and looked in, trying to see what that white, ghost like presence had_

His face appeared in an instant of color. White, so white as to make snow seem dirty, and so blue around the lips that they looked black. Raven hair standing up static with the electric pulse within this very building.

He stabbed the window high above his head, and seeing their faces, he started shrieking, something almost audible through the tiny crack the knife had made in the window. And then the blue-black lips formed a very clear sentence.

"GET OUT! NOW...BEFORE!"

He shrieked, and his head was dashed against the glass, and his lip busted, and blood dripped from it, indelible...

"SHERLOCK!" John screamed, for the first time in so long knowing to call this face by this name.

Sherlock reached up, right as they drug him away, growling, tearing at his ankles.

He reached up with one shaking finger and wrote in his own blood on the cracked glass.

**THEY ARE COMING FOR JULIUS.**

"SHERLOCK!" John shrieked, diving at the glass, trying to break it with his fists.

"John! ge-ou-nghh-"

Sherlock's muffled voice was screaming warnings, before the growling became a low roaring, and bright white teeth carried him away, into a darker part of the House.

"SHERLOCK!" John shrieked, plucking at the glass, determined to get through.

But as soon as his fist hit the air inside the House With the Blood Red Fences-

"Accck!" he screamed, in extreme pain, and fell backwards, eyes lolling about like a crazy horse in his head.

"John!" Greg wailed, breathless, and fell to his knees beside him.

"It's...poisoned!" John groaned, lips foaming.

And blacked out.


	8. VIII

**VIII~**

* * *

John wakes up at Evangeline's, lying on one of the lawn chairs out in the garden.

Mrs. Hudson is kneeling beside him, motheringly running her fingers through his hair, making a bit of a fuss, with anxious tears.

Using a picnic table as her lab set-up, on the other side of him, stands Molly Hooper.

Greg is standing at his feet, and beside him stands Mycroft, anxiously twisting his umbrella into the grass.

"Sherlock..."John groans, trying to sit up.

For the first time in a year, Molly speaks.

"Poison...It kills by ...over exposure...Drives victim insane,then..."

Everyone looks at her, and she is chewing her lip, holding up a vial of the substance she took by swabbing the inside of John's mouth,and mixing his saliva with solution.

"Molly?" Mrs. Hudson asked, surprised to hear her speak in so long.

"I'm...umm...ready...to ..talk." she said, with a tiny, nervous nod.


	9. IX

**IX~**

* * *

He thrashes and twists himself like a serpent on the ground, and with one more desperate reaching, picking his path with the knife in the shaking hand, Sherlock gets himself free of their teeth again.

He lays panting, knowing his next task.

He is sick of this. So sick of this. The pain is drilling into every corner of his marble being,his soul being long consumed by the poison.

He crawls to one of the bowls.

Elegant marble carvings...Moriarty's fine china...

Snearing Sherlock swings his bleeding ankles around, and wrings the blood from his pants legs, until the bowls are full.

Dizzy again...

The image of John, still so surreal.

He thinks it was probably a dream.

He never hoped to see him again. Never hoped to be getting out of this hell. For all he knows is that he _could _really be _dead._

But even in this twisted place, he still trusts his senses, and the facts before all else. And he _knows_ that (HELP HIM GOD) John was really there, because (help him God)... he had forgotten the shape of his face, the color of his eyes , the sound of his voice. He knows John was there, because only by seeing him did he truly remember who John was.

He knows that John is the only one who can set this right. That John is going to have to save his life, because that is the only way to save John.

But how to keep him distant enough to survive this?

Now that he's tasted this madness,he'll be back for more.

He'll need answers. He might be beyond wanting them. But, God!, he will need them.

"Madness...It's just madness...nothing but voices in my head..." Sherlock laughed, and shook his head, and glared over his shoulder, at his constant abusers.

"You lot...my muses...The inspiration for my madness...Come ,then, how do we save John the pain of this insanity?"

He looked around him, and the answer came instantaneoulsy...

"Overdose...We...make the madness more than he can take...we use the power that is drawing him here to drive him away..."

With a smile like wickedness, Sherlock stood, on shaking heels.

"Oh the things we do for the ones we love, eh? Caring really is a disadvantage...Julius was right..."


	10. X

**X~**

* * *

"Baskerville..."John gasped.

"It's the exact same poison that you mentioned from there, John, but..." Molly gasped, swallowing...

"But Moriarty...bought it out...and now...he's...perfected it..."

John nodded.

"I'm going back ,right now!"

"No, John, you can barely even walk!"Greg shouted.

" He's in there , Greg! He's locked up in there; you SAW him! We...we LEFT him there! He'll think we've abandoned him!"

John was already pulling his jacket back on.

"John...please...do not go back." Mycroft pleaded, expression turned dark.

"He's in there, Mycroft! He's in there, and he obviously can't get himself out, or he would have done it AGES ago! He was trying to tell us something! Who, in God's name, is Julius?! Only Sherlock can tell us that!"

John turned to go, when Mycroft's voice stopped him.

"I'm afraid...that...I can also tell you the answer to that..."

"Oh?How's that?"

" I am Julius."

Everyone was stunned.

Molly suddenly sobbed, understanding, knowing the full story of how Sherlock had wound up in the House, despite the fact that she only told the others about the poison.

"Oh...Oh My God...How _could _you?!" she wailed.

"What?..." Greg asked, looking between them ,scared now.

" What...do what? What happened?" John growled, growing more desperate by the second to spring Sherlock from his demonic prison.

"The Woman apparently _is_ Cleopatra reborn..."Mycroft muttered.

"You...she...but...Sherlock?!" Molly was shaking her head, in tears now, of utter disbelief.

"Yes, Sherlock...The Virgin...too pure to fall for Adler's mischief... Yes, he is the one who took the fall for my sins..." Mycroft sighed, mind becoming clearer by the second.

"I am Julius, and the "Senate" has planned for my assassination now that "Antony" has come into his own. Moriarty will officially be the great "Caesar" of the Network I created, the very same Network that I solicited Sherlock to dissolve."

"What are you saying, Mycroft?" asked John, suddenly feeling like he'd been dipped in molten lead.

None of them had ever even dreamed that _guilt _ had driven Mycroft to insanity.

"How do you think I could have been so covertly involved in everything from the beginning, and yet not exercised my vast influence to stop it? Yes, I am saying, that _I_ am the "Consulting Criminal", that _I _invinted the Moriarty and Holmes dynamic, and _I _invinted the whole Great Game concept, because I was ordered to create the proper diversion to distract the criminal underworld of the United Kingdom , to unite them for a common goal, and so supress their plan for mass anarchy , by having categorized them.I played them _ALL _for fools, by order of my masters! And Irene Adler in the end played _me _for the fool, and would have succeeded in being the undoing of civil government. How she played the part of the power-thirsty queen, how she acted as Cleopatra, seducing me to give over the wealth of the nation I had sworn to protect!

The whole point of "Moriarty" was to localize the crime, to be in power of the stolen wealth, by officiating the crimes, and so having all the accounts in _my _name,so that I would have them ,and thus the British government would have all of its revenue, stolen or no. Adler knew this. And she breached security. Threatened my stance in the eyes of my superiors; started to make them believe that I _was _the villain I was posing as.

And she was going to win the Game. She had , in fact, already won, but Sherlock and James Moriarty in the end were the ones who saved us all.

Because Moriarty resented playing the role of my puppet, because he didn't want to merely be the CEO, he wanted to be Caesar! And Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock...a heart for justice...

Sherlock opted to play Moriarty's "Real Life" Game. To bring it all down, to unwind all the farse that I had created, and so destroy Moriarty, and me, and the plans of my masters to merely supress crime, when it should be brought to justice.

Sherlock sold his soul, to save me, after I had betrayed him. Sherlock sacrificed himself to save you lot, because that was the price that Moriarty had laid on my sins...And Sherlock may take the fall for my crimes...but he would rather roast in hell than see that happen to any one of you. _Especially _ you, John."

John stood stone cold.

Mycroft bowed his head.

"In the end, Sherlock is undoubtedly the only one who can shed the light on all of this, and make it make sense. And, alas, he is the one in utter darkness now...perhaps beyond saving. And I am solely to blame."

John was shaking with rage now.

" No one is beyond saving. Not Sherlock...maybe not even you...Not sure about you. Alright, so you lost him, well, by God, I am going to save him. Get the hell out of my way; I am going back-right now-to the House With the Blood Red Fences!"


	11. XI

**XI~**

* * *

He hears him calling his name from out of the twisting black hallways of the House.

Sherlock rises up to meet the challenge of driving away his closest friend.

It will save his life, after all.

This would be suicide when Sherlock had a soul. But he has answered the question right. He's been dead since the moment he came to this terrible place.

Since the moment Moriarty held a gun to Mycroft's head, and made him "lock" him in.

And Mycroft is the reason why Sherlock is still here. But even Mycroft doesn't know that.

In the end, it's only John Watson, the Doctor, the Man Who Saves People, that can save him.

Sherlock doesn't really want to be saved. To truelly be safe, and free again, he will have to be born again.

But he wants to save John, and the only way to do that is to come clean to him.

To exit this madness that is his decay.

He is quarantined in here. Confined to this house, like the veins of the comatose to syringe -introduced solution.

"Sherlock!" John cries out, at the top of his lungs.

"John." Sherlock answers, through the crack in the door.

John leans close, having heard the closeness of his breath, the volume of his voice telling him how close he was, though still invisible.

"My God...Sherlock! You can hear me well enough ,then?"

"You've got to leave, John. Leave. Now. Before the sickness of this place infects you."

"Shut up. I won't leave you, and you know that. Mycroft is starting to remember...so, you , master detective, you are going to have to fill in the blanks for me ,so I can get you out of there. First thing's first, why can you not get out? And second, why did you put me in a bloody coma?!"

"John...you MUST trust me...I did what I did to save you. All of this has been to save you. I've allowed you to come this close; I'm speaking to you when I should not be, because I'm trying to save you...by allowing you to solve this one yourself! I have given you a clue... I will give you another, but only one more! The third time, though terrible cliched, is the charm ,and is your death sentence.

You must not let me out of here, John. It will bring about the end. If I walk, then Julius dies.

I am Ulysses."

"What? No, I'm getting you out of there!"

"John! Listen, I don't want to start a war with you,but I will if you insist on something this stupid! ...You may have your misgivings, I know it would be hard to believe because of the robotic idiot that I am...but...I uhmm...I _care _ about you , John. That's...that's why I'm in here. That's why I put you in a coma. That's why I'm here, and Mycroft isn't... I knew his people,...would protect you...

But I am Ulysses, and the House is my Oddysey. I must overcome myself, and you ...you will have to pick up the pieces I've given you. You are Prometheus, in that you have my fire with you..."

"I'm not following you...Step back, I'm breaking the door in."

There was a low hiss sound...It took John a while to figure out that Sherlock is the one who made it.

"What...what is...what are you doing? This is ridiculous, why can't you just explain yourself?!"

"Because it's too easy, don't you see? His Game, John, it's always been his Game...Mycroft's superiors...they thought their plan was really clever, did they? Proper geniuses...the lot of them. Or really not. Any dolt could see right through it. Moriarty- the sponsor of all crime- himself needed government funding. He has made the Parliament his whore...and it won't stop there...

Before long the supression that meant to hold anarchy at bay, will be the seed bed for it. It will overtake the United Nations...and after...this may be the end of the Era of Progress...This may be a paralytic that will send us back into a Dark Age...and age of stagnant science, and small minded kings...

This my chain...waiting for my Renaissance...Only you can deliver this swollen pregnant torment chamber of my animal spirit...

It isn't that I _can't_ get out, don't you see what's going on?! I could walk through these doors easily, they aren't even locked, unless I lock them! I could leave here at any given moment ,if I pleased.

I can't leave, because I WON'T. You remember Baskerville, of course. You know what becomes of the victims of H.O.U.N.D. I am their greatest creation...a monster that no one ever saw coming. I won't come out because if I did, that would bring the whole system to its knees.

I will not leave until I have overcome myself, Doctor Watson...

Now I'm begging you...don't try to save me...Solve my puzzle, and save yourself!"


	12. XII

**XII~**

* * *

John leans against the door, in the silence that follows.

Sinks to his knees, head pressed against the frame, one shaking hand hovering over brass knob.

"Sherlock?" he calls...

"Don't force me to drive you away, John...It isn't something that I wish to do, but I am well equipped to do it..."

All this time, since John's accident, living in a vague blurr, haunted by the photograph of a brother that had been his brother all along, though not biologically. Trying to replace that shattered- mirror feeling of life after his accident...That clearly wasn't an accident now.

Why couldn't he remember? Why couldn't he just take the clues and weave them together, and solve this himself?

Because he wasn't Sherlock Holmes...

In the end, only Sherlock could set this right.

And so John was going to save him. Against his will. From himself.

"Sherlock...You've been strong, God!, unfairly strong, for all this time!

You've taken this...whatever _this_ is on yourself, till it has clearly broken you.

But you're right, I'm the only one who can alter this manifesting destiny . I'm the only one who can save you. And by God,I'm not afraid, and your threats are falling empty on me! I don't care what lies beyond this door, let the madness come, let the hounds of hell swallow me whole! By God, Sherlock, if it kills me, I'm going to save you from yourself!"

John leaped to his feet.

The soldier, groomed to taking orders, to following the rules...Now he would command his own destiny,no matter what.

To hell with stolen fire. Today he was Invictus, and let the gods come, let the Roman legions come, let the hounds and the hoards of the 7 Hells break loose! Let everything come to some epic, storybook ending if it wanted to, he could care less now. Now he was the captain of his own choices, and he knew what he would choose.

He kicked the door in, tearing a hole through the cheap plywood, with his knee, blood welling up from the rip in his jeans..

In the end, John chose Sherlock.

And it would end up saving them all.


	13. XIII

**XIII~**

* * *

No sooner had John burst through the door, than he met his match.

Sherlock turned slowly around, long dark coat sweeping like dark smoke over a red horizon, stained scarlet in his blood.

The dogs, turned hell hounds on the poison dispensing from every corner of this foyer room, loomed in every corner, in every crevice that was visible, growling low like deep harmonics, a paen for lost souls, a choir for the damned.

Sherlock had a knife in his tight clenching fist. His lips were black, and John could see now why. Over exposure had caused him to develop some sort of respiratory problem. He had coughed until he had spit up blood, so many times it had dyed his lips that horrific color.

"Didn't you hear me? "

"I did, yeah."

"So, I'm thinking you know what happens now?"

"I think I do ,yeah."

"Well, then, John, welcome to the House. Let the Games begin."

"Just remember, whatever is going on in your head, Sherlock, I am your friend. "

"Just remember whatever I try to do to you, that I am yours as well. Or I was.

I am not the human being you always wanted me to be, or even the machine you feared I was. I have become your worst nightmare, and you must remember this, or else you will despise me. If I am successful then you will, and it will save your life..."

And it started.


	14. XIV

**XIV~**

* * *

They are chasing him through the twisting sickness of the House.

The Hounds bay, following their master's command.

John runs from Sherlock, down twisting corridors, blood shivering in his veins at the hissing bark Sherlock himself makes, because of the damage to his upper respiratory system.

John runs into the Room of Mirrors, and looks back, right on the edge of the Pit.

The Hounds are coming, and so is Sherlock, teeth grit in concentration.

Red.

His teeth are permanently capped with red.

Vampire.

For a moment John is filled with unholy terror, and takes a step into thin air, to escape him, suddenly sickened by the very sight of him, as the House fills his head with its cofusion, as the aerosol dispensation seeps into his skin, and he has now fully come under the influence of the H.O.U.N.D of Baskerville, Moriarty's Frankenstein hybrid.

But falling through thin air like the Last Star in descent...John suddenly remembers, with a whiplash- jolt flashback.

* * *

_Laying on a table, strapped down, as if this were his execution._

_Molly running about obeying Sherlock's commands._

( So that's how she had known the truth ,then. Sherlock must have solicited her to help him do this. So this memory is taking place in the mortuary of St. Bart's.)

_"Why the HELL are you doing this, Sherlock?!"_

_Sherlock looks at him, eyes glassy with unwept tears, and he holds the needle over John's vein, as John fights._

_"It's only harder if you struggle!"_

_"By God, I'm going to struggle! I'm a soldier, Sherlock, it's what we do! And I never knew a man yet that would lay down and die when obviously their best mate needed them!"_

_Sherlock leaned close to John's face, needle still poised despite the fact that John was grappling with his wrist, and would till his last strength. Strapped to a gurney, in a dark and scary room, presumably being betrayed by his dearest friend. Enough to keep a regular person down. But not John Watson. Despite being ordinary, he was extraordinarily loyal, and would not die, until he knew why he had to do it._

_Sherlock was heartbroken that John could be so mistaken. It was clearly visible on his face._

_"Really? You think I would be capable of doing THAT to you?! This drug...I've seen it successfully tested...it's only going to make you go to sleep. You will be in a coma that Molly will monitor, and ensure you stay in, for roughly 11 days. In which time, I am going to die."_

_John thrashed ,almost tearing out of his bonds, and Sherlock grappled him by the face, and thrust him back down._

_"No, there isn't anything you're going to be able to do to stop it! I'm sorry, but, circumstances are beyond my control now. This is the only way to save your life. Please, believe me, John, I don't want to die! I don't want to leave you like this_"_

_John has stopped thrashing now, and grapples with Sherlock's wrist ,desperately, flare of emotions making him weak._

_"You don't get it do you? You said yourself, just this morning, that friend's protect people! THAT is EXACTLY what I'm going to do, John! I'm going to protect you; I'm going to save you! And I'm going to burn in hell for it!" Sherlock cried._

_And at last he overpowered John, and stuck the needle in him._

_Leaned very close._

_"You don't have to do this..."John whispered._

_Sherlock kissed his forehead._

_"Never mind, John, it's already done. Just go to sleep now... When you wake up, you won't even remember that it happened, or that I ever existed. And it's much better for you that you don't..."_

_"I won't forget you...I won't..."_

_"Yes, you will..."_

_And after that ...darkness._

_And then despite his struggle, against his will, John forgot him. He disappeared from history ,as if he'd never been born._

Until now.


	15. XV

**XV~**

* * *

He dives into the pit, like a swan woven of spider's web,born from a child's terror of night, the very wraith of fairy tale, our story's hero rendered blood-soaked villain by the disillusioned notions of the Modern.

The knife is in his hand, the blood is in his teeth. His ribs collide with mirror chains, he swings like a professional acrobat, and twists the mirrors, howling at the light that casts his reflection in kaleidoscope scarlet all about the walls, shrieks in anger at the chain-linked web that carries him back into the Pit.

He is walking to the zombie rhythm. Just another hollow shape in a grey blurr of unattachment, just the footprints of a shadow over an archive's page, never here to be haunting.

This is what Moriarty has done to him. He thinks that he is his own nightmare, the poison rendering his own mind the Torture Lab.

He isn't aware that he's fighting with animal ferocity with some shining white aura that has entered his darkness, has threatened to balance his Chaos, has come to heal his sickness.

He doesn't even know why he is fighting the Light. Maybe only because it exists, and he does not exist, maybe from the same jealous fear that the worms of sun- scorched earth feel for the eagles of sun-kissed sky?

He is unaware that he needs to be saved, until the Light has saved him.

John utters a cry as fierce as a lion in hunting, and with a hard crack of a stone from the floor of the Pit, and for the first time since he entered this horror, Sherlock is knocked out cold.

He hasn't even slept since he came here, the poison being one such scientific phenomenon that rendered one a chronic insomniac, and able to remain alive thus, and still produce stimuli.

He is rendered blissfully unaware in a single instant.

* * *

He wakes up, in the back yard.

In the part of the House that isn't haunted. The garden part, the once beautiful place of sanctuary for whatever long-gone soul had made the once cheerful manor their residence. The rose garden woven as the lady's sinful red fan of deceptive flattery.

He is lying on his back, and his coat has been removed.

For the first time he is breathing clean air. This being the only part of the House not tainted with the H.O.U.N.D., the only breeze of a living world spiriting its path over a lonely graveyard, like the visit of human feet to a hollow tomb.

He raises his head, trying to gather his bearings.

Breathing.

For the first time able to breathe without the intense, omnipotent- magnet- pressing- heart- to needle's- point kind of pain that he has been breathing with for so long. Has been coughing up blood because of it.

He is actually breathing.

And then he feels ,for the first time, something touch his face.

A human hand, a _human_ touch. A caress ,across his cold-sweat lathered forehead.

And not just any human. But the best man that ever breathed.

Sherlock looks up, with a shaky gasp.

There kneels John Watson.

" I've got you..."John whispers, with a tender smile.

"Nggh," Sherlock groans, and tries to sit up.

"Now it's your turn to not know what in blazes is going on. Because I remember everything now..It's ok, Julius is safe. I know the secret that will put an end to Antony and Cleopatra. You gave it to me, so brilliant too, that you don't even know!"

Sherlock shakes his head.

"No, it can't happen this way...I can't leave the House...or Mycroft is dead."

"You _haven't _left the House. You're in the Garden. And thanking the Israelis, and the Americans, and modern science,and God and the heavens and whoever else, we now have cars and mobile phones. So we don't have to go anywhere, we can stay like this and I phone Lestrade, and tell him to get himself down here, because now he has evidence to form the case..."

"What..evidence? John...you are not safe."

John held up a shard of a mirror that had been broken when Sherlock came crashing down.

A shard that had a loud red "V" finger- painted on it.

"Vanity , vanity, all is vanity? You are the one that gave it away, Ulysses. Of course, it's the Cyclops!"

Sherlock leaned up a little, blackened lips forming an "Oh!" shape.

John smiled.

"The All Seeing Eye! Mycroft's masters, are covertly involved in the One World movement! They weren't trying to supress crime at all, they were trying to generate it, for their own ends !"

"Yes, I know. You solved it, Sherlock, you had been painting all over those mirrors like rat sheets with your own blood. I saw it all when you pounced me!"

"Ohhh...ohhh my God...have I hurt you?I barely remember the last few hours...Or anything..."

Sherlock sat up, feeling John over for injuries,having especially dread of knife wounds. John hugged Sherlock tight.

"Just wait till you can show Lestrade all your mirrors, and finally use "Narcissus" reflection against him..."

"I told him I would...But...how did you know about it?"

John laughed.

"Because Mycroft's people managed to sneak a camera in here too, and so there is _more _than enough evidence to form a case. It looks like the peasants are revolting..."

Sherlock sniffed a soft laugh.

"And somehow I lived to solve the case...just like I knew I would."

John pulled Sherlock closer, burying his face in his shoulder.

For a moment he just breathed. Inhaled his spirit. Cringed at how he was permeated with his own blood...


	16. XVI

**XVI~**

* * *

Lestrade answered the phone, expecting to hear John's voice.

"Lestrade?"

"Sherlock Holmes! My God!"

"Hello,Inspector. Remember me?"

"I do,actually! Long time, no see! Well, unless you want to count a while back through the window!"

"I barely recall that, so let's not count it..."

" God, I've missed you!"

"No, you haven't ,you didn't know I was gone..."

"Well, I knew something was missing, anyway, I just didn't know I was missing _someone..._

So, yeah, about that...would you care to tell me what that's all about ,then?"

" The answer to all your riddles? The key to the conspiracy that just about broke the spine of Western civilization, and in the name of progress? The House of Hell, that nearly became a school for legions, and I their hardest lesson?...Yeah, ok, why not, I've been cooped up in here for ages, at least let me show off a tiny bit!"

Lestrade laughed. "I've taken Mycroft into custody, protective for now, unless you say otherwise?"

"I assure you, my brother is innocent, in the grand scheme of things. He has merely fallen prey to the assumption that his intellect was greater than that of his enemy's, and one must never do that...The real culprit would be Irene Adler, professionally known as " The Woman". It's really a dreadful story, -I love dreadful, there's always something to look forward to!- do hurry down here, and bring Molly Hooper, she's my witness!"

"Yeah, ok, I'm making double time. Good thing for you, she's talking now. You had us all out of sorts, you should know. Molly hasn't spoken since you wound up missing, none of us could remember a single thing about the last year or so, and blamed it all on a freak accident in the social circle. And Mycroft, I think, (if you say he's innocent, I believe you...) but I think Mycroft has done his sentence already. Been living in a mental institution all this time, and John's been pushing his pill cart to him every morning, taking his blood pressure and temperature, making him pee in little cups...You know, all that rot."

"Mmm...it's my firm belief that Mycroft deserves frequent discipline to keep him from becoming anymore abnoxiously bossy than he already is...But let the punishment befit the crime. Bring him here, would you? And be careful, it's dangerous ,certainly. Someone is watching the premises at all times, foot soldiers and spies; this is a case at the heart of the question of political dominance after all, the royal fluff has found its way in. Bring a gun, Inspector. Also, I should warn you... I am a fright."

With that Sherlock hung up.

Lestrade turned to Mycroft, and Molly, whom he had not left, since John went to storm the castle.

"Time to face the music, then?"


	17. XVII

**XVII~**

Mycroft Holmes was never an emotional man. And once upon a time he was a man too proud to admit that he loved deeply, or that he felt the need to pray.

But his little brother had convicted him of his crimes, and had brought him to his knees.

Which were shaking now, as he was being lead to him, Molly Hooper having taken him by the hand.

* * *

There he stood, in the midst of the Graveyard Garden of the House With the Blood Red Fences, and the sight of him made the slowly approaching trio, lead by Inspector Lestrade, take a step back, and cry out.

Sherlock Holmes, drenched in blood, skin the shade of Dorian's portrait, lips as black as Dracula's thirst, rendered thus by the poison... The wind lifted up the tale of the long dark coat he wore, and the air was permeated with the scent of blood, and roses and tears.

Beside him stood John Watson, like an angel of repentance, almost seeming to emanate light next to Sherlock's sickly darkness.

"Hello, Mycroft..." Sherlock said softly.

Mycroft bowed his head, the Ice Man _almost _breaking into tears. And Sherlock dryly said:

"Let's go ahead and relieve Mycroft of any guilt here at the moment that we find it neccesary to do so. The only crime for which he is guilty is realizing his mistakes, and trying , but miserably failing, to correct them...

For the last 5 years, Mycroft has been the head of a security program MI6 constructed called the "Julius Program". The program was initialy a very elaborate scheme of the British government to construct "organized crime" or what they also called "benign felonies", "crimes" that were not considered criminal because the government authorized their execution, for the purpose of keeping the Underground academic network ,known as the "Art of Crime", under regulation, without even their knowledge. Thus the lower-ranking mafia members took orders from "Crime Lords" that were really undercover agents, who, once the lower ranking mafia members reaped their share of stolen profits, and payed them their sponsoring fee, the undercover agent posing as the Crime Lord would return his or her share of the criminally accrued profits, along with information on the "little man"'s accounts, back into the hands of the Treasury, and so protect the assets of the government by stealing from those that stole from said government. It was"Robin Hood" innovation, so called. And it worked the same with murders... Undercover agents would hire hit men to do their criminal works, and to "take out" individuals that were actually on the list of persons considered to be living terror units, allowing felons to take care of assassination for them. This was the "Pontius Pilate" system of control, they called it, washing their hands of the blood of dangerous persons, by allowing those deemed already corrupted to do the evil deed. This whole concept of criminal justice was originally entitled the "King's Pardon". In his defence, Mycroft covertly renamed the program "Julius" ,after Julius Caesar, who was documented as becoming abusive of his power, and whom the Roman Senate thus determined to and ultimately did assassinate. The purpose of this new code title for "King's Pardon" was to alert Mycroft's personal staff of agents, that the British government did not approve of this abuse of authority, and would covertly, and internally, terminate the corruption within its walls, somewhat like the body fights infectious disease. So Mycroft, under the guise of a very high ranking psuedononymous Crime Lord, hired the young mathematics prodigy/ financial accounting professor James Moriarty,( a psychopathic individual who had already been targeted by the system for his personally financing the cabby serial killer...) to be the Chief Executive Officer for " Janis Enterprises" the two-faced , dual purposed criminal -control business entity operating initially under the King's Pardon, often referred to as "Moriarty's Network." Then Mycroft hired other individuals of phenomenal skill set to fulfill the ruse, and so set the stage for chaotically overthrowing the "King's Pardon". That is when my brother hired me, to actively solve cases involved with this farse enterprise, cases that he gave Moriarty the liberty to create ,to set the catalyst for undoing the complex system of "benign felony". The stolen missile plans, the compromises of Irene Adler... all of it. Mycroft created the Holmes and Moriarty dynamic, sponsoring the Consulting Criminal, actually giving him his position, and funding him with enough information about my history to use as equity in the business of the "Great Game". I was to act as that anchor that would bring whatever neccesary chaos Moriarty instilled back into order. And so by order of Mycroft Holmes, James Moriarty and I began to play our Game..."

John looked from Sherlock to Mycroft and back to Sherlock in sickening horror. Their government was really that corrupt?! Mycroft was guilty by the power of association; because he was trying to STOP it?!

Sherlock swallowed, suddenly also having a more difficult time than usual maintaining his stoic composure.

"The problem with manipulating volatile forces ,however, is that sometimes the chemicals will react in ways you don't expect. Which is exactly what happened, when Irene Adler, one of the highest- ranking, MI6- appointed "False Mob" bosses, formally known in the circles as "The Woman" ( having been believed to be a reformed hyper-femminist extortionist) was actually hired by my brother to steal the code ,from a corrupted M.O.D. official, that lead to the allocation number of the seat on the "Flight of the Dead" , a diversion flight filled with corpses to avoid casualties in a planned terrorist attack. Mycroft's intention in assigning me the case with Adler was not so much about recovering the compromising photos she had made with a member of the royal family, as it was ensuring that I would confront her, and solve this code for her. She was thus supposed to return the code to her masters, and so work the system of King's Pardon against itself, allowing for the Ministry of Defence to realize that it had been compromised, and that the diversion was no longer a diversion, a malicious seeding that was supposed to lead to a chain-reaction of weeding out corrupted officers, working Mycroft's unseen purposes like a game of dominoes...

Irene Adler ,however, was one of the most intelligent opponents my brother and I have ever encountered. She was able to decipher Mycroft's intentions, and rather than betray the code back into the safe-keeping of the justified members of the M.O.D., she sold the code out to Moriarty.

This was the beginning of the end for the Julius Program. Moriarty had been given too much liberty, and had grown arrogant in his position, believing himself to be above and outside the Law. He sent Irene Adler to the compromised diversion flight to manipulate my brother and I, and only by hacking into her encrypted mobile phone device, and exposing all the secret information she had stolen for Moriarty's "branching-out" initiative, were we able to efficently silence her. She tried to escape from the contract she'd made with Moriarty, and was later beheaded by extremists in Karachi.

At that point Mycroft was forced to confront Moriarty ,not under the guise of a mega-wealthy Crime Lord, but identifying himself truly as an officer of the British government, attempting to restore balance to the United Kingdom. At that point, Moriarty had too many assets and contacts of his own to merely confine. He could only be pacified one way...He wanted to continue his Game with me...To ensure that if he must dissolve, that I would also dissolve.

The Consulting Criminal and I came to a compromise that was officially out of Mycroft's control. To fulfill the contract we had both agreed to , which was the fulfillment of the "Julius Program" ( and at this point Moriarty began giving titles to players involved in his Game, dubbing Mycroft as Julius for the "hypocritical abuse of his power"), we would continue with our Game. But this last round would be a match to the Death. One in which Mycroft could not intervene. One in which I was completely in control of the destiny of the British government, as well as Mycroft' s life, and of ...your lives, now considered to be stakes to my claim in Moriarty's "Great Game".

Moriarty pulled all of his assets out of the "Janis Enterprises", and used them to hire Baskerville to perfect the H.O.U.N.D. serum that he sent me to break into the Baskerville base, and discover for myself, on the case we accepted from Henry Knight. It was Jim Moriarty who actually referred Mr. Knight to me..."

( By now John was gasping).

"To signify the final round of this Game, Moriarty gave me a choice. Either I must attend your communal execution, or agree to arrest in the testing grounds of the perfected H.O.U.N.D. serum. Mycroft was also given an ulimatum. Either he surrender me to the testing ground personally, or the Prime Minister's life was forfeit...

Mycroft's purposes in Julius had wretchedly failed, and I didn't give him a choice in the matter. Acting rashly, and of my own conscious, and with the assistance of Molly Hooper, I helped Moriarty to create the lie that would be inculcated to my loved ones after the fact. I am the one who induced John with a drug that would put him in temporary coma, and would stimulate in him temporary psychogenic amnesia. I am the one who abducted Mycroft against his will, and forced him to come with me to this ,the House With the Blood Red Fences, where Moriarty forced him, at gun point, ( and finally persuaded him by my,for lack of better term, yes, begging!) to lock me within this my voluntary house arrest, where I have remained for roughly 12 months. If I am to set foot off these grounds, your lives are forfeit. But I am revealing all of this to you now, because I have finally pieced together the last bit of the puzzle. Moriarty is only continuing as the Consulting Criminal, because the corrupted sector of our government is allowing him to. King's Pardon, as it turns out, was hypocritically manipulating "benign felony" with the purpose of installing the One World Movement...A system where Moriarty would be the king, if we allowed him to. But sadly for Narcissus, it seems I also now have the Keys to the Kingdom, and that, ladies and gentlemen, I have finally won the Great Game, and solved the Final Problem..."


End file.
